


A Friend of Lions

by crossingwinter



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-12
Updated: 2014-11-12
Packaged: 2018-02-25 03:34:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2606975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crossingwinter/pseuds/crossingwinter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the king's party rides north for Winterfell, it is a different Stark who is overjoyed to see a childhood friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Friend of Lions

Catelyn watches Cersei like a hawk as Ned leads Robert down to the crypts.  Cersei is pursing her lips in disapproval, and there is a disdainful expression in her green eyes.  There are no laughter marks at her lips, no crow’s feet at her eyes.  She looks nearly as young as she had the day she had wed Robert, looking older only in—no.  That isn’t quite true.  There are lines to Cersei’s face, subtle, hidden by powder, but there.  Anger lines on her forehead, between her brows.  
  
“Your Grace,” Catelyn says quietly, and Cersei’s eyes snap to her, her expression softening slightly.  “Might I accompany you to your rooms?  I know the journey must have been tiresome.”  
  
“Thank you, Lady Stark,” says Cersei with a sniff and she sweeps across the lichyard, pausing only when she is at Catelyn’s side.  “The children,” she begins, but Catelyn smiles and cuts her off.  
  
“I am sure they will be in safe hands with mine.”  She smiles at Robb and Sansa, both of whom straighten, and even Arya looks as though she’s eager to help.  Bran’s already smiling at Prince Tommen, and Rickon is watching them warily, but not unkindly.  _Let them be friends,_  Catelyn thinks.   _Let them love one another as I love Cersei._  
  
“How do you bear his bastard standing with your children?  I would not tolerate it,” Cersei says dismissively as Catelyn leads her into the keep, and Catelyn loops her arm through Cersei’s as she did when they were girls together in King’s Landing.  
  
“Ned loves him,” Catelyn says quietly.  “And I…” she shakes her head and Cersei gives her a commiserating look.  
  
“I had some of Robert’s bastards strangled.”  Cersei says it blithely, as though it were nothing more than putting a lame horse to rest, and Catelyn’s eyes widen.  It was true, she had wished Jon Snow gone from this place years before, but to strangle him…that she would never have done.  Ned would never have forgiven her.  
  
“I…I have confidence that…” that what?  Jon had made noises of late about riding north to join the Night’s Watch, and what a relief that had been.  A relief to know that he would be bound by blood, and if he ever tried to take Robb’s seat as Ned’s eldest son, his head would be struck clean from his shoulders and no one would think any the less of the man who swung the sword.  “He may yet take the black.”  
  
“Ah yes, and the Black Brothers take no wives, father no children, hold no lands—very like the Kingsguard.”  She smirks as if at some private joke.  Once, she might have told Catelyn what it was, once she might have leaned over and hissed it in her ear and the two of them would have shared it, but now she does not tell Catelyn what it is.  
  
Cat had seen hints of that when she and Ned had gone south to visit her for the birth of Prince Tommen.  Hints of Cersei no longer open, no longer joyful, a bitterness to her tongue and to her thoughts that were as alien to Catelyn as the sight of Edmure’s face when she’d seen him first grown out of boyhood.  
  
Their footsteps echo through the staircase of the keep, and when they reach the chambers that the Queen is to stay in, Catelyn hovers by the door.  Once, she might have followed Cersei into the chamber.  Once, she might have smiled and begun telling her of how she often caught Bran climbing, and how she longed for Arya’s needlework to improve, or how Ned was beginning to think of finding a bride for Robb, but her boy was not so old as to be married just yet—surely he wasn’t, when she’d held him in her arms just yesterday.  
  
Only when Cersei looks over her shoulder, her eyebrows arched in curiosity does Catelyn follow her into the chamber, and she closes the door behind her, before crossing to a little table and sitting down.  
  
“Robert means to ask your husband to be his hand,” Cersei says, sounding very pleased with herself.  Catelyn nods.  
  
“I had rather thought that might be the case—after Jon Arryn died.”  
  
Cersei’s lips pursed again.  “I suggested Jaime first, in truth, but Robert said he’d be damned if he put my brother on his council.  As if it weren’t my brother who won him his seat.”  She rolls her eyes and sits on the end of the bed.  
  
“He is well, Ser Jaime?” Catelyn asks.  
  
“Yes,” Cersei says simply, before pressing on, and Catelyn remembers vividly the hard look that Cersei had given her when she had been young, and Jaime had come to Riverrun.  She had been so pleased to meet him, the brother of her friend, who had seemed delighted in her company, and Cersei had been so cold to her when she’d told her of it.  So very cold, that Catelyn had wondered if she mightn’t be jealous—so she had pressed on to speak only of her betrothal to Brandon Stark, brave, vibrant, handsome Brandon, and had left out her father’s hopes that Jaime should be wed to Lysa.  That seemed to have calmed Cersei, but Catelyn had been careful to keep her questions of Jaime distant after that—and whenever she asked after him, the responses were always short, curt, some part of Cersei that Catelyn had no right to, had never had a right to.  
  
“I made it sound a disdainful thing, so take no offense that I shall not be warm to the idea while I am here.  Robert is so easily manipulated when he is in a temper.  Make it sound like Lord Eddard is the last choice I would pick and he leaps for it.” She drops her voice in a rough imitation of King Robert’s “‘Lord Stark helped me win my crown while your father was sat on his ass in Casterly Rock.  Had things been different, I would be wed to his sister, and not the Kingslayer’s.’  He’s still infatuated with her after all these years, even though he only clapped eyes on her once before he married me.”  
  
The old bitterness seeps into her voice, and Catelyn finds herself crossing to the bed and sitting next to Cersei.  They’d been girls together—carefree girls in the court of the Mad King, and after all these years and the wide leagues between Winterfell and the Red Keep, there is still tenderness for this woman.  “If King Robert is such a fool as to belittle your value, then I hope Ned will knock some sense into him.”  
  
“I hope so too,” Cersei says.  “You speak highly of your husband.  I hope he meets your faith.”  
  
“He will,” Catelyn responds eagerly, “Ned is a good man, a just man.  He will serve Robert well and serve the Kingdoms better.”  
  
They sit there quietly for a time, and Catelyn holds Cersei’s hand.  She wants to say she’s missed her, she’s missed those days of strolling through the gardens of the Red Keep, arm in arm, whispering in one another’s ears, of Prince Rhaegar’s beauty, of her betrothal to Brandon Stark, of everything and nothing.  But she does not.  She does not, because she knows Cersei will not, for Cersei has always been proud, will always be proud, and by all the Gods, Catelyn loves her for it.   _Cersei is a lioness—she will not be declawed.  Not by Robert, not by me,_  Catelyn thinks.  And it is not a sad thought.  For Gods only know what she would have become if she’d not had Ned’s love and respect as Cersei so clearly did not have Robert’s.   _Her pride must have been what has kept her going all these years._  
  
“Your girl—your eldest.  Sansa,” Cersei says.  “She has your look.”  
  
Pride swells in Catelyn’s heart.  “She shall grow into a woman far more beautiful than I,” she says as modestly as she can.  
  
“Robert has it in his head that she should marry Joffrey.  That they should be what should have been between him and Lyanna.”  The name is bitter on her tongue.  “But I rather like the idea of a daughter with your look marrying a son with mine.”  There it is again, that secret smile from before.  
  
Catelyn squeezes her hand.  “Nothing could make me happier than the thought of that,” she says earnestly.  “Nothing makes me happier.”  
  
Cersei looks at her, cocking her head to one side, and smiling, and for a moment, Catelyn feels that they are young again, and that the world is still open to them and she prays—prays that Ned can curb Robert and will heed the advice of her friend.


End file.
